King Henry III was crowned monarch at the age of 73. Charles ascended to the throne on May 6, 2023, following the death of his mother.
The late Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth was buried at the George VI Memorial Chapel in Windsor, 11 days after her death on September 8.
The death of a ruler is so significant that a lot of planning is required to ensure a smooth transition of power.
This plan for the Queen was called Operation London Bridge and laid out everything from how the public would be informed to her lie-in in state to her funeral. Hundreds of thousands of mourners queued for hours to pay their final respects to the Queen, while millions tuned in to watch her final farewell, attended by world leaders and heads of state at Westminster Abbey.
Operation London Bridge included all the details of what would happen in the 10 days following the Queen’s death, including where her coffin would go, how the prime minister would announce the news to the public, and how Charles would spend his first few days as King.
And when the Queen passed away, it meant that a new plan had to be put in place for the new King Charles to finally pass away.
What is Operation Menai Bridge?
Operation London Bridge was created in the 1960s, just a few years after the Queen’s coronation, and was revised many times in the years before her death in 2022. King III. The code name for Charles’ eventual death was Operation Menai Bridge, named after Operation Menai Bridge. The world’s first iron suspension bridge in Anglesey, Wales.
Preparations for the Menai Bridge began shortly after the late Queen’s death, according to royal bodyguard Simon Morgan. In an interview with Today, he said at the time: “Even the King said in his acceptance that he would take on this role as long as life allowed him to.
“He’s 73 years old so that should be in the back of your mind and we need to start planning again for the future according to the police.”
How did people find out about the Queen’s death?
The day the queen died was called D-Day, each day thereafter was called D+1, D+2, etc. It was called. A “series of calls” was to take place hours after the monarch’s death to inform the prime minister, the cabinet secretary and several senior ministers and government officials, according to the released documents.
To commemorate his 70 years on the throne, the monarch’s coffin was paraded from Balmoral to Edinburgh in Scotland before lying in state at Westminster Hall for four days before his funeral on 19 September.
More than 250,000 people took to the streets of London, forming an orderly queue before passing through the ancient hall of the Palace of Westminster to pay their respects.
The late Queen’s coffin was then taken to her final resting place at the King George VI Memorial Chapel in Windsor.
How will Operation Menai Bridge develop?
The announcement of Operation Menai Bridge is expected to have many similarities with Operation London Bridge.
Once the Menai Bridge is operational, Prince William of Wales, next in line to the throne, will become king along with his wife Kate Middleton, who is expected to become Queen Consort.
The new king would then address the nation, as Charles did on 9 September, and the people would enter a period of national mourning before the funeral.
Similar to the Queen, the prime minister will be kept informed by the King’s private secretary, such as the King’s Privy Council Office.
Ministry permanent secretaries will be given a script to inform government ministers, while the cabinet secretary will send an email to senior civil servants. Flags in Whitehall will be flown at half-mast once this email is received.
Why do we have code names for the death of a royal family?
Code names were initially introduced for royal deaths to prevent news of deaths from leaking to the press ahead of the official announcement.
The use of code names prevented switchboard operators at Buckingham Palace from learning the news before it was made public.
However, now the code names have become common knowledge.
Funeral arrangements for the Queen Mother and Princess Diana shared the codename Operation Tay Bridge, and plans were in place when the late monarch’s mother died in 2002, aged 101, aged 22.
Operation Forth Bridge was the code name for the death of the late Duke of Edinburgh, whose funeral took place at St George’s Chapel in Windsor and his coffin was placed in the Royal Vault.